Kyuss, stoner rock's biggest band, have reunited – they are just missing their guitarist. As the band announce their first concerts in 15 years, Josh Homme is sitting things out, letting a relative unknown replace him.

"I don't want to do this just for myself, but especially for the fans," singer John Garcia said. He will rejoin bassist Nick Olivieri and drummer Brant Bjork for 25 dates next spring, playing the UK and Europe under the name Kyuss Lives. Three quarters of Kyuss will be assisted by guitarist Bruno Fevery, a member of Garcia's backing band. "[I'm doing this] both for the [fans] that have seen Kyuss live back in the day," Garcia said, "and especially for the ones who haven't had that chance. This could be as close as they could get to the real thing."

The "real thing", you see, requires Josh Homme. As leader of Queens of the Stone Age and producer of bands such as Arctic Monkeys, Homme retroactively became Kyuss' most famous member. Speaking to Music Mart in 2007, Homme said a Kyuss reunion would be "a total error". "To punctuate the end of our sentence with [a reunion] would be blasphemy," he explained. "If you weren't there, well, you weren't. That's just the luck of the draw ... I like that nobody saw Kyuss, and that it was largely misunderstood. That sounds like a legend forming to me."

Kyuss released four albums between 1991 and 1995, only two of which featured the canonical lineup. Garcia's post-Kyuss career has hardly been stellar: his most recent gigs were under the name Garcia Plays Kyuss.